Save Money On Your Water

How much do you spend on drinking water?

Fresh water out of a tap or bottled water, it all costs but those costs differ hugely depending on where you are.

Now, although many countries still face real issues surrounding access to fresh water many people take it for granted.  Nothing wrong in that but how much are you paying?

If you have a water meter installed at home you probably know exactly how much you are paying and chances are that this in itself has influenced your use of water.  For those that simply pay a fixed monthly or annual fee it’s very different.  While the costs may be constant, responsible use of water keeps costs down for all and simply makes sense.

So what about bottled water? 

How essential is it to have a new bottle of water that perhaps has been transported many hundreds if not thousands of miles – just think of the carbon footprint.

If you are one of those people who insists on buying bottles of water just think carefully about this for a moment.  How much are you spending each week?  What could you do with that money if you switched to safe tap water instead?

Remember that water is water is water no matter where it comes from – it’s just H₂O.

One Bottle Is Enough

Just buy yourself a bottle of water or other container and keep re-filling it – it’s not that difficult if you think about it and it will save you money and the environment too.

Spend a little time to save a lot of money! 




6 Steps to Sound Financial Management

Sound financial management is key to anyone's success.  If you can't look after your money then what hope is there for everything else?  The same of course goes for small and large businesses and whole countries too, it's just the scale that's way different.

Step 1 – Set A Target

Determine just what your own financial target is.  It might be becoming completely debt free, paying off your mortgage or other significant loan or anything else.  Whatever it is, it has to be so important to you that you will do whatever it takes to make it happen.

Step 2 – Plan Your Timetable

Set out a timetable with the end point being the successful arrival at your financial goal.  This might be a matter of months or a few years.  Best to keep it within sight, say no more than 3 years max.  Break down your timetable into regular periods against which you can measure success. 

Step 3 – Calculate Your Outgoings

Work out your regular outgoings both in terms of weekly, monthly and yearly payments and compare that with what you earn.  This might be more difficult than you think but aim to get it as accurate as you can and don't be tempted to miss out all those one-off payments - they all add up.

Step 4 – Calculate Monthly Repayment

Divide what you want to pay off by the number of months you aim to take to get rid of that debt to work out how much you need to find each month.

Step 5 – What Can You Sell

Look about you, both physically and financially and see what's available that could be sold right now that would not adversely impact your life (too much) but would give you a quick return and could pay down a significant chunk of that debt.  For estimation purposes take off what you think you could get and re-calculate your monthly pay-back figure (don't be too optimistic about what you might get, be realistic).  Of course, once you've made the sales you can re-calculate with the real figures.

Step 6 – Use A Red Pen

Take a red pen and cross out all those luxuries and unnecessary items in your list from Step 3.  Now, take your red pen and see how you can reduce your 'necessary' spending by an overall percentage.  This could be 25% or 40% or whatever fits your calculations.  The figure you need to aim at ought to be high to force you to push for it, anyone can trim 5 or 10% without really thinking about it.

Keep to your timetable and keep re-freshing your calculations along the way.  Who knows, you might be able to beat your timetable - now that would be good wouldn't it?

Spend a little time to save a lot of money!